“Not yet ready” for logarithms

All through school, I was good at math. I wasn’t brilliant at math like my genius older brother, but I was good enough to get A’s. I think math was so easy for me because there was always a straight line connecting the dots. There was nothing I couldn’t solve with a pencil, eraser, and trusty ruler. Until I got to logarithms in Grade 11. No ruler or linear thinking was going to help me. I simply had no mental boxes to understand the non-linear aspects involved in logarithms.

I asked my teacher to explain it over and over — no good. I cried in class. I wept at home. My brain would not open up to this new math concept.

That’s when I went crying to my older brother and asked for his help. Over the weekend, my brother patiently taught me about logarithms, step by step. By Monday, I returned to class and happily announced that I totally understood logarithms! My teacher cheered (and probably sighed with relief).

Epilogue: For the end of school report card my math teacher wrote, “Working beyond her level of comprehension.” I think that grade comment was meant to communicate that I should go on to take Math 12. But I took working beyond my level of comprehension as a compliment because it proved I wasn’t afraid of working through challenges.

Later on a lifespan developmental course I learned about the zone of proximal development where challenges and a mentor is a recipe for success.